Device and network security continues to be a major concern in today's industries. In fact, most solutions to security holes are really only temporary fixes until hackers discover a way to penetrate the solutions. As a result, there is rarely a comprehensive approach to security.
Because of this fact, many industries still deploy old technology in an attempt to prevent a security breach. For example, consider financial institutions, governmental agencies, and medical agencies that still refuse to receive any confidential data over a website connection or through an email; rather, customers are still required to fax data to fax machines when sending confidential data. This is because the financial institutions and governmental agencies do not want to run the risk of a security breach in their computer systems. However, having confidential data sitting for any extended period of time in a fax tray after receipt is far from secure. Moreover, intruders can also gain access by penetrating the wire from which the fax machine receives and sends faxes.
A problem with this approach of using old technology to avoid security breaches is that many customers lack access to a fax machine and cannot send a fax. In fact, even integration of fax capabilities into computing devices has been getting phasing out in more-recent releases of computing devices and their installed software products. It is only a matter of time when the only entities relying on fax technology will be financial institutions and governmental agencies.
As a result of this situation, customers have to visit shipping and printing stores to perform the needed fax transmission. But, these entities providing fax services may not remain for long, and the entities may not have locations that are convenient for the customers to visit to perform fax transmissions.
Consequently, many customers forgo faxing altogether and arrange for a convenient time to physically visit the financial institutions or governmental agencies and provide the confidential information in person. This is also inconvenient when customers have jobs and cannot arrange for time off during which the financial institutions and governmental agencies are open (and most of these entities have limited operating hours as well). Even self-employed or unemployed individuals experience inconveniences in: locating a business that can provide a needed fax or arranging a physical visit to that business, due to a variety of factors, such as but not limited to: traffic congestion, commuting distance, prior commitments, and the like.
Yet, fax transmissions may, in some cases, provide a superior level of security, in some situations, over newer technological approaches associated with website access, emails, and texting. This is because the newer approaches are interconnected and accessible via network connections and therefore susceptible to hacking and compromise from by anonymous and remote intruders whereas the fax machine provides a hard delineation between a networked computing environment when the fax machine is not connected to the networked computing environment.
The traditional fax configuration is a completely unconnected device from an enterprise's computing network and the output of the fax is printed media. The printed media when scanned into the enterprise's computing network becomes an image of pixels that are only capable of being viewed and do not pose any risk of network security breaches because the image data is non-executable.
This is but one example where older and outdated technology may, in some situations, actually be more secure than existing and state-of-the-art technology. Other examples may exist as well, where disconnected and non-network accessible technology provides superior security to existing approaches.
Therefore, there is a need for capturing the security benefits associated with older and outdated technologies in a manner that can integrate with state-of-the-art technology to leverage the security benefits of the outdated technology while providing integration with the state-of-the-art technology.